In his novel Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky uses nightmares to develop the story of Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov, the depraved sensualist, until its denouement, in which he fully accepts his dire situation and its inevitable outcome. Svidrigailov serves as a foil to Raskolnikov and represents what the young student could become if he continues to transgress the moral line. Dostoyevsky develops this theme based on Svidrigailov's three nightmares, each of which shows that no one can continually ignore the moral law without suffering serious consequences. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay These three nightmares follow directly from an encounter between Svidrigailov and Dounia, the only woman Svidrigailov ever truly loved. Svidrigailov locks Dounia in a room and stares at her with a lustful gaze. In self-defense, Dounia takes out a revolver and fires three times. She is a skilled shooter but deliberately misses with every bullet. Dounia's display of mercy, her refusal to cross the moral line, has a profound effect on Svidrigailov, who feels "a weight... moving away from his heart,... deliverance from another feeling, darker and more bitter" (458-459). Svidrigailov is so moved by Dounia's example that he temporarily suppresses her inclination to immorality, giving her the key to the room and urging her to leave him with all haste. For Dounia, "there was a terrible significance in the tone of this 'hurry up,'" for she could not be sure how long morality, manifested in his desire to be truly loved by her, would triumph over his other impulses - such as his desire to impose the path on him - which compete with "the terrible and silent struggle of his heart" (459). Svidrigailov, in this rare state of morality when he leaves Dounia, goes through the stormy night of St. Petersburg, and ends up settling in for the night in the unwelcoming hotel room where he will have his three nightmares. The hotel room is cramped, dirty. , sparsely furnished and unpleasant. The room can easily be described by the same words used to describe Raskolnikov's attic, "more like a wardrobe than a room" (1). This similarity, coupled with the fact that "[Svidrigailov begins] to feel feverish" shortly after arriving in his room, serves to further emphasize the similarity between Svidrigailov's and Raskolnikov's situations (465). In the first dream, Svidrigailov is awakened from sleep by a little mouse running across his bed, under his sheets, and inside his sheets. Svidrigailov struggles to catch the mouse, but only succeeds temporarily before it escapes again. Svidrigailov finally wakes up, muttering: “How disgusting” (467). The rodent, which revolts Svidrigailov with its dirty little paws crawling on his skin, symbolizes Svidrigailov's equally revolting lasciviousness, which is enough to give someone the creeps. Even if, thanks to Dounia, Svidrigailov has temporarily repressed his lechery, he is well aware that in this vice "there is something permanent, based in fact on nature and not on fantasy, something present in the blood like an ever-burning ember” (434). This dream reminds Svidrigailov that no matter how much he struggles, he will inevitably return to his old ways. Svidrigailov's second dream stands in stark contrast to the rest of the novel in terms of the imagery employed by Dostoevsky. Until now and after, Dostoyevsky uses only dull grays and sickly yellows to depict the misery of the St. Petersburg hay market. However, in the second dream ofSvidrigailov, Dostoyevsky speaks of an idyllic country house, overgrown with fragrant flowers, on a beautiful, warm Trinity day. Svidrigailov finds himself inside this cottage, standing next to "bouquets of tender, white and very fragrant daffodils, leaning on their long, thick, green and shiny stems" (468). Svidrigailov is "reluctant to move away from the narcissus,” flowers named after a man who died due to his extreme self-centeredness. Svidrigailov eventually forced himself up the stairs and into a room strewn with flowers and flowers with a small coffin in the middle. Dostoyevsky mentions that the coffin “was covered with white silk and edged with a thick white ruffle; wreaths of flowers surrounded her on all sides,” using the color white and floral imagery to symbolize the purity stolen from the girl who, in a white muslin dress, lies among the flowers in the coffin (468). This young girl, in stark contrast to the innocence her surroundings suggest she should have had, wears a "smile on pale lips of unchildish misery...She [is] only fourteen, but her heart is." .. [had been] crushed by an insult which had tainted the purity of this angel with undeserved shame” (468). Svidrigailov, watching the girl he caused to drown, is fully aware of the role he played in this tragedy. No longer wanting to live in misery and guilt, Svidrigailov opens a window, letting the wind blow furiously against his face and chest, waking him up and, he hopes, excluding any more painful nightmares. Svidrigailov is determined to leave the hotel, go to the park, and “chooses a large rain-soaked bush” under which he will commit suicide (469). However, he is prevented from going out by “a little girl of barely five years old, who is shivering and crying, with her clothes wet like a soaked flannel” (469). Taken with pity by such a pathetic sight, Svidrigailov takes the girl to his room, takes off her soaked clothes and tucks her into bed. However, once in bed, the girl undergoes a strange transformation. The redness of her cheeks “[seems] coarser and brighter than the rosy cheeks of childhood,… like the redness of drink… Her crimson lips [become] hot and glowing” (470). Dostoyevsky's use of red imagery suggests that the girl possesses a sexuality that would be more appropriate to find in a prostitute, to which the girl bears a resemblance that Svidrigailov begins to see after noticing something "d shameless, provocative in this completely unchildish face. It was depravity. , it was the face of a prostitute. Both eyes widened, laughing, inviting her" (470). Svidrigailov is disgusted by the depravity he sees in this girl; although usually "the monstrous difference in age and development excites [his] sensuality" , seeing a girl barely five years old in such a state inspires disgust even in Svidrigailov (444). He is angered by the girl and tries to hit her, even though the anger he feels is directed against her. himself because he is so depraved; this episode, which is a nightmare from which he wakes up at the moment when he tries to hit the girl, forces Svidrigailov to face the consequences of his actions, which every young life does; he touches is stripped of his innocence and plunged into depravity. Svidrigailov, now fully awake, sits in his hotel room, trying in vain to catch the flies hovering around his calf However, "realizing that. 'he [is] engaged in this interesting activity, he [starts]', because life [resembles] strangely the first of his dreams, in which he unsuccessfully caught a mouse.